t settles that. but the whole boss thing is flattering, at best, you're bruce springsteen. at worse you're the leader of an underground indicate who always gets his way. at least they give him the michelle bachmann treatment thing. or it could have gotten real creepy. remember this cover they could have worked you in there some way in a flattering and slimming fashion. governor christie, i wouldn't be too upset about it. first off you made the cover of "time" magazine. next time, there won't be a next time because by the time you run for president print media will be dead any way. >> jennifer: all right, well someone is always in our war room. check us out online at current.com slash "the war room." you can check out our web extra.

thank you u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u u tomorrow. >> cenk: welcome to the "young turks." we've got a great show ahead for you guys. we have a pastor set to give the ben diction at the inauguration. >> tome mow schoolty is less than gods best. >> cenk: guess what happened? ladies and gentlemen, we got him. easy not giving the ben diction. how in the world did that happen? we're going to have that discussion. >> you saw biden's press conference interrupted by another shooting. did you see the case of a popular you tube channel about guns. >> here we go. [ clicking ] >> there it is. >> shot and killed. of course. and then speaking of killed,

those head injuries are worse than we realize. >> it's a game that i know he didn't love the end of his life. >> now that this condition is diagnosed, what did you think of that? >> cenk: wait until you see the results. unbelievable. obama's press secretary good or bad? what caused the unbelievable spike and decline in crime through the 1960's and the 1990s is a decline in crime. everybody was wrong about that. an awesome yes on that, as well. guess what? it's go time. [ ♪ theme ♪ ]

>> cenk: now atlanta pass tore louie giglio has done good work in his life, but also has terrible things to say about gay americans. he gave this sermon called in search of a standard christian response to homosexuality in the 1990's. >> homosexuality is less than god's best for his creation. it is less than god's best fours and everything in our lives. >> cenk: yeah. here's what i love. guys who think they're talking to god. i heard the voice of god.

did he tell you where it said you shouldn't eat shrimp because you're going to hell. he didn't tell you that part. he did focus on the one part that they talk about not the part where if you wear two different types of clothing it's an domination and you'll serve in hell forever. that gets left out. this part doesn't of the of the >> cenk: can you imagine gays having the same standing in our society at anyone else? my god what would we do if we didn't have that kind of hateful discrimination. that's a really good point. his detractors say that was 15 years ago. his proponents say that. gay rights activists said this is a bridge too far.

we suffered through the first inauguration and now this guy. look what happened. he is withdrawing from the inauguration. reverend louie giglio said: >> cenk: you know, it's interesting, because i've seen a million times progressives giving that withdrawal statement during the obama administration. i would be a distraction, et cetera. for a conservative to do it. wow! who are these legendary progressives who can get president obama to listen to them. as you can see from the presidential inaugural committee, they have listened in deed. if there's one progressive group that gets the job done, it is gay rights activists. god bless their heart.

matt joins us in studio. there's a lot to discuss. how in the world does the gay rights community get so many successes politically? >> i think in this instance in particular, you saw the obama administration's desire not to have rick warren part two. that plagued him for weeks. weeks and weeks. and knowing how well the lbgt movement worked for the obama reelection campaign, there's no way they were interested in messing this up. there's a bottom line. lgbt helped get obama reelected and he knows that. >> cenk: i think you've hit on it exactly. that so how did they get him reelected? the lgbt community is strong, but not a high percentage of the voters. >> true. this is the most pro lbgt president we've ever had undoubtedly, by saying that you believes that all people should have the right to marry their

partner, has been the most visible proponent of same-sex marriage on the planet, the most visible head of state on the planet. that message moved tons of people who were on the fence about obama reelection into the obama camp. that in spired a lot of fundraisers to really galvanize to open pockets and wallets. that brought him a lot of money. we reported that depending on who you're asking, one in five or one in six of the major bundlers for the obama reelection campaign were gay. >> cenk: one of out of six or one out of five, 20% of his major donors were from the lgbt community. >> the bundlers. >> cenk: that collected bigger donors together. >> yeah. >> cenk: wow. that's a little political power.

>> it well should. it's been enormous in terms of access enormous in terms offed administration seeing that when we're mobilized we mean it, and we're ready to act and ready to fight for our rights. >> cenk: see, that's interesting. that's the second component that's really important. one is in politics this day and age, unfortunately, post citizens united, money rules the world. you're keeping it real, right? the second part of it is, you can't be bluffing. if you say hey listen, i'm going to do this and i'm going to stick to it, well, then the obama administration as we've teen them into time and time again with republicans they'll bend. >> they respond they absolutely respond. you know, we looked at -- we reported at the advocate that the breakdown of straight voters went roughly 49% to each obama and romney, but lgbt went for

obama. they decided the election. >> cenk: i think 76% is too low. which lgbt is voting for republicans these days. [ laughter ] >> cenk: the nones not affiliated with any religion are 20% of the country and went to obama, but they have zero political power. they're not focused. they don't make demands. they're not an activist group that say take us seriously and don't have the money to back it up. that's an enormous difference. giglio he's fighting against sex slavery, et cetera. >> very important work in that reward. some say this happened 15 years ago. is it fair to say this is the guy we draw the line on? >> other prominent speaker had

evolved. had he evolved i think people would have given him a pass. he demonstrated that he hasn't evolved. you mentioned things he wrote in his withdrawing from the inauguration statement. there was some, you know, certain like dog whistling about not being aevolved at all. i will most certainly pray for him on inauguration day. our nation is divided. >> cenk: let me give the audience one last quote from giglio. this is from the mid-1990's: >> cenk: well, if he wanted to move aggressively toward that community, and they move aggressively back, that's sad day. it's constantly one way attack. it used to be for a long, long time and they get so hurt if you fight back. i think if you send them a

message we're not going to take it anymore it's a good message to send. matt, thank you. >> thank you. >> cenk: when we come back, we'll talk about gun control. the number of shootings just the last couple days, a guy on you tube surrounded by guns shot. a woman who would carry a gun to the soccer practice of her 5-year-old shot. what happened? i thought guns were supposed to protect you. there is one case the n.r.a. is crowing about. >> shooting, shooting. >> ok. >> shoot him! shoot him! >> her life is saved and our kikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikikiki we have a big big hour and the iq will go way up. (vo) current tv gets the converstion started weekdays at 9am eastern. >> i'm a slutty bob hope. >> you are. >> the troops love me. (vo) tv and radio talk show host stephanie miller rounds out current's morning news block. >> you're welcome current tv audience for the visual candy. just be grateful current tv does not come in smellivision.

the sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. (vo) only on current tv.

these talking points, that the right have, about the "heavy hand of government" ... i want to have that conversation. let's talk about it. really? you're going to lay people off because now the government is going to help you fund your healthcare. really? i want to have those conversations, not to be confrontational, but to understand what the other side is saying, and i'd like to arm our viewers with the ability to argue with their conservative uncle joe over the dinner table. >> cenk: all right, we're back. we've got michael shure here, our political correspondent. we're going to talk about guns. anna kasparian is here. i call her casper the friendly ghost, i also call her ak47.

she fires back. >> nobody calls her that. >> cenk: i used to all the time. >> back in the day. >> cenk: yeah. >> today, the vice president and his gun prevention task force met, this time with the n.r.a. the n.r.a., the national rifle association, opposed to any kind of restrictions. the vice president has said we're going to have to work both sides of this argument. here is what he said after meeting with the n.r.a. today. >> even if what we do only saves one life, it makes sense. i think we can do a great deal about it anyway, imposing on or impinging on the rights of the second amendment. that's what this is about. >> you know, as it's scripted, they had to break into the vice president's press conference there, because there was a school shooting, this time in taft california, near

bakersfield, bakersfield near taft. they broke in and this is the reporter coming in with that story. >> talking to you about vice president joe biden talking to the media on guns, we are learning there has been a school shooting at taft high school in taft california, and this according to our affiliate kero, this happened around 9:00 a.m. local time. according to reports at least two people were shot. the shooter is in custody. >> apparently, they even made the news in australia. the severity of these stories and the seriousness of these stories cannot be underscored. the vice president is speaking to america about what's going on, just having spoken with the n.r.a., and then, of course, there is what has become all too routine in this country is the sighting of the heroes on the scene of the shooting. here is the sheriff talking at taft in california.

>> the heroic ohs of these two people it goes without staying to stand there and face someone who has a shotgun already discharged it and shot a student that says speaks volumes for these two young men and what they may have prevented. >> cenk: all right. well look, of course i'm tired of it, and i saw one of the moms i think in taft said i can't believe this is happening in our county. mom, believe it. did you think you were exempt? nobody is. it's going to happen in your town. i've said this on every show, i've missed a couple of shootings by a couple of towns a couple of times. what makes me violently ill is that your kids might not miss that shooting one day. >> they happen in towns because nobody knows. they are small towns nobody thinks they'll have them. it's the same thing.

this is happening all across america. i went into taft high school website today to look at what sort of security they have. i notice they have, they're contracted and you'll see it here. they have someone from the sheriffs department at that school. >> the kid who goes in to do the shooting isn't thinking oh, my god, half the time, they kill themselves anyway, right? they're not going to be deterred by somebody with a gun. at columbine, there were guns. at ford hood, it was fort hood familiar it was more weapons than you can imagine. >> extreme gunfire. >> cenk: it didn't solve any of it. since newtown, 695 shooting deathing. 695. imagine if it happened in one day instead of over the course of three to four weeks if in

one day 695 people were shot to death in one event everybody would go crazy but the slow mass kill ins and peel go ok, the n.r.a. says that we can't do it. >> that's about 35 new towns since newtown. >> think about the number of regulations and restrictions we have on something like marijuana which has killed exactly zero people in this country. >> cenk: damn straight. >> and very little regulation when it comes to guns. >> cenk: the n.r.a. has signed up 100,000 people since newtown shooting. they're ecstatic about this. yay, more shooters. then people, according to cns new's, people looking for high power magazines are looking for a million of those so in case they're banned, everybody is ready, because as june stewart

put it, imaginary hitler might come. anna you have more. >> i do have more. yesterday, it was reported that a person who works for a very popular you tube channel was found shot and dead in a gun shop. now, he was a producer for fps russia but made occasional appearances on the you tube channel. >> here we go. [ clicking ] >> there it is. >> cenk: all right so he is very proud to be surrounded by guns and literally surrounded by guns when he was shot to death. that there was a woman outside of philadelphia, a town near philadelphia, where she used to bring her gun to her 5-year-old's soccer practice. everybody flipped out. she got her license revoked and got it back and her gun helped

her not at all when her husband shot her to death. each time, dimitri who runs that you tube channel the neighbors in the case of the soccer mom is why didn't they use the weapon. because the other guy has a gun. when he pulls it, it's over. it's over. it's not a movie it's not like all of a sudden she goes like this. that's so stupid. the n.r.a. is going nuts over this georgia mom, 695 people killed since newtown but we found one case where we stopped an intruder. i believe abc has more on that. >> is he in the house? are you sure? if he open that is door one shoot him, you understand? >> 32-year-old paul slater probably thought no one was home and used a crowbar to break into the house. he went after one of the 9-year-old twins as they ran

upstairs and broke through a locked bedroom and a locked bathroom before finding the addeddic where the kids and mother were hiding. >> stay in the attic. he's in the bedroom? shh, relax. just remember everything that i showed you. everything that you taught you right? >> she's armed with a .38 revolver, drops the phone and fires. >> she's shooting him. shoot him again! shoot him! >> he is clinging to life, accused of burglary and unlawful entry. his family doesn't apologize. >> her life is saved and our kids life is saved. >> cenk: she doesn't have to apologize at all. she saved her family. here's what would have happened without a gun. he would have come in and burglarized the house as he has on six separate occasions and left. >> get it, you don't want to take that chance.

i'm not blaming her for shooting the guy. a lot of us probably would have done the same. it's not oh, my god every time the guy went in to do a burglary, there was rape et cetera. there was assault in one of the cases. the guy was looking to steal some stuff. what if she missed. >> you had an intruder in your home the end of last year. you talked to us about it. you didn't feel like if you had a gun it would have made any difference, it would have worsened the situation. >> cenk: my kids were in the house, all right? i have a two-month-old a 2-year-old. there's an intruder in the house. what if he's got a gun and i shoot, he shoots. where are the bullets going to go? i'll scared to death that something's going to happen to my kids. i don't want anybody shooting in the house. the cops responded in 60 seconds in one of these stories. in taft, taft is a rural area. they responded in 60 seconds. ok? wait for the cops. so, you know, look, it happens

time and time again and the other stories you won't hear going forward. the n.r.a. story with the woman ststpipi the intru ir,ru yr,'lloul obably here 10 more times in the media from this day forward. you watch. appreciate it. >> we had a huge spike in crime 1960's, 1970's and 1980's. the correct they are are you is amazing. the guy who wrote the article about it will explain it all when we come back. >> leaded gas introduced a whole new level of lead p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p you know who's coming on to me now? you know the kind of guys who do like verse mortgage commercials? those types are coming on to me all the time now. >> she gets the comedians laughing... >> that's hilarious! >> ...and the thinkers thinking. >> okay, so there's wiggle-room in the ten commandments is what you're telling me. >> you would rather deal with ahmadinejad then me. >> absolutely!

>> and so would mitt romeny. >> she's joy behar. >> and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking? >> only on current tv. [ voice of dennis ] allstate. with accident forgiveness, they guarantee your rates won't go up just because of an accident. smart kid. [ voice of dennis ] indeed. are you in good hands? hershey's simple pleasures chocolate. 30% less fat, 100% delicious.

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[ phil ] get back to the things that matter most. ask your rheumatologist if enbrel is right for you. [ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biologic medicine prescribed by rheumatologists. >> cenk: of course everybody remembers that we had a spike in crime in america from the 1960's and 1980's on. new york city was a mess and then all of a sudden it started dropping in the 1990's. people had theories for that, the broken win did hes theory where if you fix the broken window things get better. even a small thing leads to finding out about bigger levels of crime. crime also went down in l.a. and washington that didn't do that. i thought we're missing something. turns out what we were missing

was lead. that seems incredibly strange doesn't it? it did to me in the beginning. when you find out more, you gibb to understand why. look at this presentation. >> leaded gasoline was used to improve performance. new research at case western reserve university finds gas introduced a whole new level of lead poisoning in children. >> there was a peak in the 1960's and 1970's. leaded paint for the latter part of the 20th century was not the major source of lead poisoning in children in cleveland, leaded gasoline was. >> the researchers analyzed lead levels in children who grew up in high traffic areas. >> children who grew up in such neighborhoods had a higher correlation with the lead and gasoline than children with less traffic. >> lead poisoning has been associated with behavioral

problems later in life, some studies suggesting it may lead to criminal and anti social behavior. >> this graph shows you the period of 1937 to 1986. 1960-2009, it seems to match up extraordinarily well. that's 20 years later. by the time the kids exposed to lead grow up, that's when they would be committing the violent crimes. it's an interesting correlation. is there a causation? let's bring in kevin drum. kevin, thank you so much for joining us, appreciate it. >> thanks for having me on, cenk. >> let's talk about why it might be lead. what is it in lead that could cause violent crime?

>> it turns out we've known for a long time that exposure to lead reduces i.q.s in small children. over the last decade, there's been research showing lead does more than that. it turns out that in small children when they're exposed to lead, it affects areas of the brain that are related to impulse control related to aggression, emotional regulation, things like that. it turns out that it's permanent damage to your brain. even if you're exposed to lead from your first five years and then it stops your brain development is permanently affected. by the time you grow up and become a teenager, when you get into your 20's, you are more aggressive, more violent than you would be otherwise due to the affect of lead on the development of the brain. >> cenk: you know, let me say something controversial here that is not in your article. as i was reading the whole thick, i thought those people are still around, the people that had the permanent mental damage, they're just older, kind

of older voters that vote republican. >> i don't know if they're voting at all. most of them are in prison. you know, what happened was these are all kids, this all happened after world war ii. we all went on a car buying binge, filled up the gas and the exhaust peaches poisoned children. the kids grew up and started committing more crime. we took lead out of gasoline starting in 1975, and if you go, you know, 15-20 years ahead wait for those kids to grow one they commit less crime. so from about 1991 forward there's been a very steep drop in crime. now, all those kids who were exposed to lead and became criminals in the 1970's and 1980's, we locked them up. we built a ton of prisons doubled prison capacity, then

doubled it again. most of those kids are in prison. here's what's interesting. right now today the arrest rates for teenagers 18, 19, 20-year-olds is down, but the arrest rates for older people, 35 40, 45-year-olds is up. that's because those are the same people who were lead poisoned as kids, put in prison, now being let out but they're still violent still criminals. they are going out committing crimes again and being put back in prison. >> cenk: that's really, really scary. if i went into your article, i was a little skeptical, i was really lead? you showed how it affects the brain. people at home are wondering there muscles be other possibilities where crime went up and then down. how many of those did you look at and did the others match up in correlation with the time periods we're talking about here?

>> there's a lot of different causes of crime. lead is not the only thing that causes people to commit crime obviously. you can get rid of all lead on the planet and you'd still ever crime. what you want to explain is not why there isn't any crime at all, but why there is this sudden huge spike in crime in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's and decline starting in the 1990's. if you blame crime on poverty you'd need to look at it and say did poverty spike up in the 1970's and 1980's and go down in the 1990's? no, it didn't. did we get a lot of broken families and suddenly we didn't have them in the 1990's? no, that didn't happen, either. you look at demographics, you look at drugs poverty family structure, things like that. what you don't see is all of these things suddenly getting worse in the 1970's and 1980's

and then getting better in the 1990's antoughts. the only thing that really fits is lead, which did get worse and then did get better, because we took all the lead out of the gasoline. lead was permanently banned in gasoline in 1995. we are for first time in decades, right now we're seeing the first generation of to grow up almost completely lead-free. not totally but largely lead-free, because we banned lead in paint and gasoline. >> cenk: i want to talk about that. that's interesting and not getting enough coverage. who made that decision? was it the e.p.a., and what kind of a difference do you think it made in our society in america let alone the how many cost, but also in economic cost. >> i mean, the cost has been huge. the cost, the human cost, of course is huge. you have millions and millions of kids who were, you know, sort

of artificially turned into monsters. the economic coster is enormous, the cost of crime is huge, the cost of locking um criminals is huge. you've got how many cost, huge economic cost, as well. >> cenk: what if we hasn't taken the lead out that that continued, instead of going down, we almost semi permanently lived in that state and we might not have done that if for example we didn't have the e.p.a. >> that's exactly right. what happened was partly sort of accidental and partly deliberate. in the early 1970's, we were fighting smog, right and the way to fight smog, we ended up deciding was to put catalytic converters on cars where you have to run unleaded gasoline. we were forced to take the lead out to fight smog. beyond that, there was research at the time showing the link between lead and loss of i.q. in children. the e.p.a. was quite active,

even after that in getting lead out of gasoline faster, so there were rules in 1975, there were new rules in 1985 that reduced lead even further and then finally in 1995, lead was completely banned. there's been no lead in gasoline at all since 1995 in america. >> when republicans tell you we don't need regulation, don't believe the lie man remember the lead. >> removing the lead in gasoline probably has the highest cost ratio of probably any public policy we've gone through in the last 50 years. >> thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. >> cenk: when we come back, president obama's new pick for secretary treasury. do i like it? well we've got a guest on who's an expert on it. good pick or bad pick, we'll discuss when we come back. >> all the talk about deficit

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>> i never noticed jack's signature, and when this was highlighted yesterday in the press, i considered rescinding my offer to appoint him. jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency should he be confirmed as secretary of the treasury. thank you very much, everybody. >> cenk: that was really funny and i liked that part of the press conference. unfortunately, i don't like jack lew's record. he used to work for citi group.

guess what happened after the bailout? he got a $950,000 bonus. there is some issues. the bigger substancive issues, what is his view on bank reregulation that has caused so much problems. yesterday, president obama was very clear on deregulation. watch. >> 21 times just this year, john mccain has said we need to deregulate the financial industry right at a time when we know that it's because of deregulation that wall street was able to engage in the kind of irresponsible actions that have caused this financial crisis. >> cenk: very clear but when jack lew was asked during his original confirmation for manager and budget, here's what he said about deregulation. >> my sense is as someone who has generally been familiar with these trends is that the problems in the financial industry preceded deregulation,

but don't believe that deregulation was the proximate cause. >> cenk: that is preposterous. only a million% wrong. how could anybody think that deregulation didn't have to do with the destruction of the banks back in 2008? well if you got paid a million dollars a year to think that, you might think the same thing. i'm not the only one bothered by it. william black was a senior regulator when they bothered to regulate after the debacle. tell me the problem with jack lew. >> so much problems, so few time. the first thing is a lock of integrity. it isn't even so much that he worked for wall street. it's that he was in charge of

o.m.d. for president clinton and was one of the important architects of financial deregulation. that's why he's not willing to admit that, because his fingerprints are all over what caused the crisis. >> cenk: so that's interesting. >> if you don't ever integrity you don't get anything. >> cenk: he's part of the guys who deregulate the banks. he goes to the banks gets paid millions of dollars at those banks that deregulation causes those banks to crash. becoming the director of the office of management and budget, then chief of staff now secretary treasury. it's almost as if they reward failure in washington. >> it's not almost. i said this about geithner, that he was selected precisely because he had a track record of consistent failure and louis a worthy successor. on every important financial issue, he has been as wrong as

it is possible to be wrong he's caused devastating harm to the american people and the economy. he's grown wealthy from it. he's completely dishonest intellectually about his role in causing the problem and he's going to be in charge of implementing the many thousands potentially of the rules under dodd frank and he's of course incredibly hostile to effective rule making. he is a disaster, but, you know, in a competition with geithner, they look very similar. >> cenk: yeah, it's hard to believe that you can't improve a little bit on geithner. look we've got the situation with the republicans, you know, they'll make a show of objecting, oh, he was tough during the budget negotiations, but they love a guy who is going to let the banks run amok, the democrats appoint him.

he also i also proud about getting the surplus under clinton. that's a record to be proud of, if you ask me, but it seems they are teeing that up for now, we have to do austerity today and cut the budget. do you think that's a good idea? >> no, that's really the single worst thing. i have a column i did about that, as wellle, about how obama's o.m.b. sounds almost exactly like the tea party in terms of its rhetoric. they want us to do what europe has done. look at what austerity has done to europe. it has thrown the entire euro zone back into depression, unemployment in italy spain and greece. youth unemployment in spain and greece is over 55%. the battle joke, i'm partially

irish is back in ireland what is ireland's leading export? the irish. as soon as you get your university degree, you leave. >> cenk: tough times ahead. i wish we had some real regulators in washington, one of the old regulators who did his job, william black. thank you. >> that you can cenk. >> cenk: when we come back, a football player who's head was a mess. there's an amazing story about that and theism pact on his family. >> there is a big risk. >> there is huge risk. >> it's not worth it for me to not have a very, very excited about that and very proud of that. >>beltway politics from inside the loop. >>we tackle the big issues here in our nation's capital, around the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the

flag from 6 to 9 every morning. >>liberal and proud of it.

>> cenk: junior seau was one of the best defensive players to play football. he hit hard, that's what he was known for. apparently, that damaged his brain significantly. he committed suicide at the age of 43. his family donated his brain to the national institutes of health and their findings were amazing. at-bats has a report about that. >> we have learned his brain showed visible signs of c.t.e., chronic traumatic enreceive lop thee the concussion related injury that shrunk and hardens brain tissue and is at the center of today's football

controversy. >> they did no the know they were looking at his brain. they looked at it and said this is clearly what's going on in this brain. his ex-wife and son had a very good relationship with him. they were devastated. >> i love you. >> that was the last words we heard. >> they understand it's attraction and all too well, it's routine danger. >> i think it's a gamble, just be extremely aware of what can happen to your life. >> it's a big risk. >> it's a huge risk. >> it's not worth it for me to not have a dad. to me, it's not worth it. >> cenk: that's tough to hear every single time. e.s.p.n. explains the science of concussion a little more. >> big blows like this one can be the equivalent of taking a sledgehammer to the head.

it's not just pro football. studies show high school football and even pee wee league football players are exposing themselves to the dangers of head trauma. >> he is not alone in committing suicide. recently andre waters, known as dan day dirty waters killed himself, duerson with the bears and ray easter ling. >> game over, politics are turning the sports world upside down. great to talk to you. talk to me about these concussions. that what can it is nfl do about it? >> very little. they find them receivers in a similar position as the tobacco industry, you're never going to make a cigarette safe.

similarly, you'll never make the sport of playing football safe, whether you're talking about the pee wee league, high school, pop warner or the nfl. the case of junior, it puts an exclamation point on now what are several years of new medical data we now know about the cost of playing football. >> now i look at that and i begin to think i don't know that i want my son playing football. i know college is already too dangerous, nfl college way too dangerous. what do you think would you stop your son from playing pee wee or high school football? >> it's an interesting question. my father-in-law was drafted by the dallas cowboys and always had dreams that my son now four years old would play football. two years ago, it was a real debate. my wife has drawn the line in the last year and said no way no how. my wife is not alone actually. over the last year, 1 million less kids are playing pop warner

football than the year before. that represents an 8% drop. the data shows that that's attributable to the new data people have about head injuries at such a young age. i asked nfl players this question all the time. i always ask them do you want your own son playing football. i'll tell you something. some say yes some say no, but they all think about it. they all pause and really think about it. more often than not they say i guess i'm playing football so my kids don't have to. >> cenk: wow that's really interesting. dave, i love football, i love watching football. my guess is you love watching football so are we also culpable? what are we supposed to do about it? >> i think you have to look at professional football like any unsafe industry in the united states and we should want nfl players to have the best possible health care, the best possible protections that they could possibly have. i mean, just because the sport is unsafe doesn't mean we should

just throw our hands up and say i guess it's just unsafe at any speed. there are ways it can be made more safe. after the findings came out about junior having c.t.e., the national football players association put out a very aggressive statement even calling on u.s. congressional intervention to make sure there were independent doctors on the sidelines at nfl games independent concussion evaluators on the sidelines for nfl games and much more independent oversight of how the nfl handles all medical issues, not just concussions, but all of them. i can tell you as someone who lives in washington where we're going through r.g.3 gate right now about the injury with his knee buckling on that incredibly unsafe turf, that is something fans are very willing to hear. >> teddy roosevelt intervened in college football and said i'm going to stop the sport unless he make it safer. they made it safer and far more

entertaining, a much better sport. the government can have a positive effect in this case. dave, thank you so much for joining us, i really appreciate it. >> my privilege cenk. >> john fugelsang is up next on viewpoint. >> new york city, thousands of men walk around without needing to carry an automatic weapon. the n.r.a. met with vice president biden and presented their 12-point plan for doing absolutely nothing to stop gun violence. we'll talk to richard feldman a gun lobbyist with the independent fair arms owners association. he was in that meeting and will join us for a chat. we'll have bill mccibben, and talk about climate change and i'll break down the difference between

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